The Committee is in one way pretty secret project. Why is that? Why do you want to be so mystified?

Igor Mortis: Many people who only receive their information from the TV and newspapers, have a very limited view. Therefore it's important that these people judge our music for what it is, without prejudice and pre conceived notions. Our anonymity assures that. Besides, when you analyze most important historical events, you inevitably come to the conclusion that the masterminds remain in the shadows, while colorful well groomed puppets dance and play a spectacle for the masses.

It is said that The Committee project is an international one. Can you share with us from which countries the members are?

Igor Mortis: Off course. Our bass player is Belgian, but he has Dutch roots. Same goes for our guitarist; his origins lie in France. Our drummer has family in Ukraïne and Hungary. My origins are in Russia. For the moment we all live in Belgium. A series of strange coincidences and freak occurances brought us together. Working as an international team turned out to be very productive, due to so many differences in upbringing and way of thinking and handling. I wouldn't want to work any other way.

Your debut demo was recently released. Interesting enough, it is released on 50 CDs and 50 tapes. I really like and respect that. Interesting way to promote the work in today's „only mp3 bands“ world...

Igor Mortis: We have to thank our drummer William for that. He’s the person who orchestrated the release on tape and cd. He’s an old skool thinking metalhead who loves to have a physical item to hold and cherish, instead of an mp3 file in cyberspace. And off course we will have to move with the current technological zeitgeist, so a digital release of Holodomor ( and future albums ) will happen in digital form, parallel to the physical releases.

We have some interesting mixture of doom, black, pagan metal. How would you describe your music and lyrics?

Igor Mortis: On metal archives we are classified as atmospheric black metal. It can describe our music if you never heard it before. I would say that The Committee is neither black, doom, or pagan. We play the music that best suits the lyrics and atmosphere of the moment. Thanks to our diverse team, we are not bounded by any rules or standards. Remember the feeling when you heard an amazing song that made your hair stand up on the back of your neck? This is what we are working on to achieve.

From the infos that can be found online, it is said that The Committee was founded back in 2007. Your first demo was finally issued in 2013., after whole 6 years of silence. Why that long?

Igor Mortis: In the beginning of 2007 I started out as a one man project. After the first draft of 3 songs was ready, the project sat on the shelf due to lack of time. Only when our drummer William heard the songs by accident in 2011, he insisted on forming a proper band. I am still mad at myself for not launching The Committee earlier. Many years went by due to procrastination and laziness. I am ashamed for that.

Demo „Holodomor“ has a strong message, same as whole The Committee project, which can summon in your unique message: History is written by the Victors, we are the Voice of the Dead. Tell us something more about that.

Igor Mortis: I think as a Serbian individual you can relate to this message. We all know that something is seriously wrong in this world. We can feel it every day no matter what country you consider your home. The values that we learned as children are wiped out by new empty concepts and cults. We learn the history from the point of the victors, with total disregard for lives lost on both sides. Our way of thinking is manipulated in order to judge without investigation. We are thought to obey. Our message challenges the beliefs of many people and offers an alternative view on many interesting events and facts. I think this is why our fans like what we do. We do realize that we are balancing on a thin blade of “political views”. That’s why we strongly refuse to be labeled. We bring our music to our fans, regardless of race, nation and religion.

Judging from the cover of the demo many can conclude that you support Stalin and his actions, ideas. But it's not like that at all, is it?

Igor Mortis: Off course Stalin was a monstrous dictator who has blood of countless people on his hands. Nobody can deny this fact. The only argument I can offer, is that I am blessed with the ability to investigate this interesting person from the side of English speaking writers, as well as Russian ones. I have the luxury of balancing all the facts and filtering the subjective material in order to come to one conclusion. Yes Stalin was a horrible person when you look at him from the democratic eyes of Western people. Throughout history Russia has been ruled by force of a strong King or leader. This is the only way to keep a country with 9 time zones together. Democracy works in the West. In Russia and other nations ( for example the Middle East and China ) the only way to get things done, is by force. Results matter! Before Stalin, the country was a peasant community. He managed to transform it into an industrial superpower. In the West this was done by the so called fiat currency system. In Russia this was done by the blood and sweat of millions of people, simply because the monopoly of printing money belongs to other nations. We do not support the actions of Stalin. We consider him to be a very interesting person who gave the Imperial regimes a run for their money. This fact alone makes history so interesting.

It seems to me that your idea was to explain the people couple of things about history, oppression, media coverage, etc. Do you think that people will hear your message? Are they ready to listen some different views?

Igor Mortis: First of all, most metal fans I know are very smart and educated people. Our message is not meant for the masses of people who are happy with a 9 to 5 life with highly anticipated drunken weekends. We KNOW that our fans are interested in what we have to say. Simply because we feel the gravity of everyday life and we know that everything is not as wonderful as the media wants us to believe. And second, we are just too tired of hearing so many bands that worship Satan and paganism as their main theme. Not much new stuff has been done these few years. We want to bring something new and exciting to our fans. For now the response has been beyond our expectations. We are continuously motivated to go on and work even harder.

What does the song „Not Our Revolution“ stand for? We have some sort of a hidden song in it, as well.

Igor Mortis: “Not our revolution” tells a story of a small group of foreign people who overthrew the Czar and took control over Russia in 1917. Unfortunately every country that has natural resources or shares an excellent strategic position on the map ( just like former Yugoslavia ) will always be targeted by other nations to profit from. In the game of life, anything goes. Any method and trick, no matter how immoral and macabre it may be, is used to take control. The only way a nation can survive this atrocity, is by unity of people and strong leadership. “Not our revolution” is a template that is used up to this day.

I suppose your next move will be a full-length. When we can expect it? Are you going to release it yourself or through some label? If you can, tell something more about the debut album.

Igor Mortis: The full length album is scheduled for the end of 2013. It will be in the same grim theme as the demo, however we want to focus upon the stories of individuals who lived in the turbulent years of the Russian revolution and the Stalin era. It’s important to notice that unity plays a big part of the full album. We have a lot of work to do in order to create a very dark and guttural sound. When our fans listen to our music, we want to make sure that they are dragged inside the songs to experience everything with all of their senses and imagination. Off course the full mastering of the album will be outsourced to an external professional due to the critique of our current sound. We want to improve ourselves every step of the way, because our fans deserve only the best we have to offer.

As far as the release goes, we are very realistic about the underground scene. We know that many labels are struggling to make ends meet due to competition from online retailers and mp3 releases. That’s why we won’t make too much effort is promoting ourselves as a potential band to “sign”. We believe that if you are good enough, there will be interest from the labels themselves. We hate it to be “in your face” band who scratches on every door. We are open for collaboration and off course we would like to release vinyl as well as CD’s, tapes and mp3’s.

Any plans for live show in the future?

Igor Mortis: Most definitely. We will play live shows from the moment our full album hits the scene. Our only wish is to keep our anonymity.

Big thanks for your time and good luck with the project. I really hope that The Committee music will be recognized by many fans!

Thank you for your interest in our band. From what we hear so far from our fans, keeps us motivated and hungry to do even more.

The Committee is a collaboration of blackened doom artists from different countries that have set out of create a diverse, crushing sound that brings awareness both lyrically and instrumentally. Focusing on themes like history, their debut demo "Holodomor" is brief, but full of epic sounding tracks. The opening 'Utopian Deception' starts the album off with a powerful insturmental that definitely lives up to the doom metal side, but the black metal hits once 'Katherine's Chant' comes forth. This is pretty much the staple sound for the group with the fuzzy tremolo picking, faded vocals and plodding drums. There isn't much variety here between the riffs as the tracks progress, but the quality is certainly hypnotic and will live up to most doom/ depressive black metal expectations. The closing 'Not Our Revolution' features a good length of quiet before giving way to the easter egg hidden near the end that features chanting and singing but most fans may feel that the wait wasn't worth the gift. Still, this small offering of crushing music has potential that could evolve into more if The Committee provides more music with longer pieces and perhaps even more various instrumentations- the choirs near the end of the last track were excellent and could have been used more in mix with the music itself.

Our dear Friends and Fans! The Campaign is finally upon us! From this day on The Committee will award the fans ( and owners of our physical albums ) with ranks. The EP holodomor ( and the limited shirt ) will be awarded with the highest rank. What does this mean for you?

You can proudly wear your seal and prove that you have been there from the beginning.

You will have a piece of The Committee that is personal and very rare. ( The Highest rank only counts 150 souls worldwide )

You will have the highest rank. ( The full length album will be accompanied by a lower rank )

This vacation time is a time of getting rid of the piles of music which are staked up and wait for reviews. One of the by far most overdue releases is a CD I received so many moons ago that I can't even remember when it was! The demo CD is from a band called The Committee, and the CD is called 'Holodomor'.

The cover letter explains that The Committee was formed in 2007, and that the band deals with topics which noone else likes to talk about, like the capture and submission of Russian and Slavic people. Heavy stuff indeed. So, the picture of comrade Stalin on the cover is no coincidence, eh?

Reading through the lyrics, you can tell that there's quite a bit of emotion and anger going through the individuals behind The Committee. Apparently, my research on the net tells me, the band consists of members of different European nationalities, their common language, though, being metal.

The first track is something I'd call a pure doom instrumental. The next three songs still maintain a doom feel, but The Committee turn out to be more of a black metal band than actually a doom band. As other recent reviews on this site will tell you, I'm not at all a fan of old school black metal, and yet I like this. The vocals are in no way hysterially screaming. Good. The guitars aren't quite as paper-thin and cold as some black metallists will have it, rather, they have a dark, sweeping feel to them and come in over you like waves of emotion, a bit like Russian music can do. Much the same throughout the three songs, really, but still I like what they do. The Russian choir at the end is just spot on as a grand finale - and exactly the way the great dictator would celebrate and glorify his murder of millions of innocent people.

'Holodomor' is not the best produced album out there. By no means. Still, The Committee manage to purport a lot of emotion, the feeling of death and cold, and the cry against the injustice done by the dictator Stalin was.